I Am In Love With Audiobooks

It’s finally happened. I am finally an avid audiobook listener. My mom has listened to them for almost as long as I can remember, and it didn’t make sense to me. Why wouldn’t I listen to music instead? In college, my taste for music mixed with a new appreciation for podcasts. I’ve listened to podcasts about health, animal cognition, sentience, and welfare. I’ve listened to podcasts about sex and death and the crazy lives that remind listeners of the mundanity of their own existences. And I’ve listened to podcasts that tell stories: Myths, Fairy Tales, Legends, Folktales. When I think critically for more than a single second I wonder how it took so long to transition to listening to books.

Listening to books gives the listener the freedom to continue their lives and still partake in the fictional bliss that is reading. I can be driving to work and hearing about how Misery reluctantly plays with her newly betrothed’s younger sister, or shaking my head at the questionable decisions of Werner Pfennig. When my eyes are tired, I can stare at the ceiling and listen, sparing my underperforming eyes from the persecuting headaches that screens and words can provoke.

Audiobooks are what allowed me to keep reading when I started this new job. When I get off work, I (tend to) go to the gym, come home to cook something, maybe clean the house a bit. By the time I’m showering, it’s nearly time to sleep because those above know that I will not function the next day if I’m not in bed before 10pm. I’m still working on a routine that will allow me to write each and every day (which I’m currently failing) and the only way that it will even be possible is with audiobooks. This is a hill I will die on.

Will there sometimes be poor narrators? Yes, of course. That’s the great thing about it-if there’s a narrator you dislike, you can simply add the book to your physical copy TBR instead. It’s that simple! And other times there will be narrators that blow your socks off and read it exactly as you imagined the characters to sound.In short, if you have some sort of grudge against audiobooks or childish reasons for putting them off-quit. Try them as soon as you can. The app Libby allows you to sign in with your library card and rent audiobooks that you download straight to your phone. There is literally no excuse to not try audiobooks when they’re free and at your disposal. I rest my case.